








































Baptist


36

Baptist
Heather Hicks, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Convener

MEMBERS PRESENT

• Heather Hicks, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 
Fort Worth, TX

• Donna Wells, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 
Wake Forest, NC

• Bill Badke, ACTS Seminaries, Associated Canadian Theological 
Schools of Trinity Western University, Langley, BC

• Jonathan McCormick, Gateway Seminary, Fremont, CA
• Patsy Yang, Gateway Seminary, Fremont, CA

ROUND ROBIN REPORTS

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary – Heather reports 
that President Dr. Adam Greenway resigned in Fall of 2022 and Dr. 
David Dockery became Interim President at Southwestern Semi-
nary. In spring 2023, the Trustees approved Dr. David Dockery to 
become the formal tenth President of Southwestern Seminary, Dr. 
O.S. Hawkins as Chancellor, and Dr. Matt Queen as Interim Provost. 
The library had a new director start in June 2022 and then changed 
directors again in November 2022. Along with locally hosting Atla 
Annual Conference, the library began a large serial project to con-
dense serials 50% to allow for more social gathering space on the 
first floor. Additionally, the library decided to move from Sierra 
ILS to EBSCO’s Folio ILS through the Mobius consortium set to be 
completed in March 2024.

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary – The big project this 
year is the new 4 seasons pavilion renovation (Ty Williams Memo-
rial Pavilion) now completed with good seating and social gather-
ing space outside right next to the library. While the Southeastern 
Administration has been stable, a few positions moved around in 
the library. The Serials Coordinator retired, and the Reference As-
sistant left for a teaching job. The new serials position required an 
MLS and encompassed digital serials that were previously over-
seen by Director Jason Allen. The acquisitions person was moved 



Denominational Group Reports  37

into the Reference Assistant’s job. A new full-time job was created 
by combining an ILL Assistant job with the new Acquisition job 
opening and then filled by a long-time ILL Assistant who holds a 
Ph.D. Donna Wells is planning to retire at the end of the year. Con-
gratulations Donna on an excellent career and entering a new sea-
son of life! 

ACTS Seminaries, TWU – Bill Badke explains that the Associated 
Canadian Theological Schools (ACTS Seminaries) is embedded 
within Trinity Western University (TWU), and is part of four semi-
naries, two of which are Baptist. Dr. Badke has created and built 
the curriculum for a successful required reference and research 
course. TWU’s Library has moved to collecting predominantly eb-
ooks due to increased distance students, surveys, and students not 
physically visiting the library. They have struggled with the price 
of ebooks being twice (or more) the price of print books, even with 
single-user licenses, especially with publishers Zondervan and Nel-
son, so that the print acquisitions budget doesn’t cover the same 
amount of digital material. TWU uses LibGuides to direct students. 
Dr. Badke has been invited to write a chapter on information ethics 
in the Literacy Information Handbook, an international collabo-
ration, scheduled for publication in 2025. Congratulations Bill, we 
look forward to reading and using this resource.

Gateway Seminary – Dr. Mike Kuykendall retired and left his his-
toric Bible collection to Gateway Library, including exemplars of 
the history of the development of the Bible from around the world. 
Gateway is presently working on the best way to receive, pro-
cess, and display this collection. Dr. Kuykendall’s retirement also 
opened the opportunity for Jonathan McCormack to serve as the 
Gateway representative to the Southern Baptist Historical Library 
and Archives (SBHLA). The SBHLA is offering grants/scholarships 
for students interested in studying the history of Southern Baptists 
and currently digitizing the South Carolina Baptist Newspaper and 
Kentucky Baptist Newspaper. Gateway Library has one job open-
ing, the position of Public Services Librarian, which will include 
oversight of the circulation desk. Patsy Yang reports that 2 librari-
an positions lost during COVID have not been refilled. Director Mc-
Cormack took over cataloging from Dr. Bob Phillips and everyone 
is doing reference work. Patsy is retiring next year – Congratula-
tions Patsy on your upcoming retirement and new season of life!



38    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

OTHER

Current issues of banned books, etc. – Briefly discussed how 
complaints have been handled regarding material that has been 
asked to be withdrawn. Southwestern and Southeastern Semi-
naries experienced similar situations where items were removed 
from display at the request of the administration but not removed 
from the collection. Southeastern divided its book display into the 
Seminary’s five core values and focused the display books on those 
values. Southwestern’s budget doesn’t allow for much spending 
outside of core theological texts. Bill Badke reports that it has not 
affected his library but that they did receive a complaint about the 
shelving location of the Quran. The Quran was shelved on the low-
er shelves which is close to the feet and considered disrespectful. 
Gateway Seminary has more of a problem with students wanting 
books approved by Southern Baptists than actual complaints. They 
have had a few complaints in the past but nothing recently.

Collection Development Policies (CDPs) – Briefly discussed the 
revision of CDPs and the move toward electronic resources in re-
flection on student usage. Gateway resubmits the CDP to the fac-
ulty every three years, and it was most recently reaffirmed without 
revision. Southwestern drastically revised the CDP after COVID to 
accommodate digital needs and is revising the CDP yearly to re-
flect FTE enrollment type. This last year, Southwestern Seminary 
reached 55% online students and has modified the collection policy 
to prioritize e-resources when possible. TWU has mostly principles 
of collection development stated in their CDP and focuses more on 
collection accessibility.

Ebook prices/budget – Discussed the price of Zondervan items, es-
pecially ebooks. Discussed successful advocation to reduce prices 
of ebooks with Wipf & Stock. Agreed that the Baptist denomina-
tional list could be used to organize for collective advocation to 
publishers regarding price reduction.

Reference sections – Bill Badke advises that TWU had to dismantle 
the reference section when the Learning Commons moved into 
the main floor of the library. TWU chose to interfile the reference 
books with the regular stacks but left the loaning restrictions and 
original labels on the books so patrons can determine usage rules. 
TWU also expanded digital reference through LibGuides. Donna 
from Southeastern reports that they downsized their reference sec-
tion last summer to half the previous size and remodeled the refer-
ence area with seating and tables, which has been well received. 



Denominational Group Reports  39

Southwestern reduced the reference section 5 to 6 years ago but 
is looking into further reduction alternatives upon completion of 
the serials project. Gateway has found that students don’t seem to 
understand what the reference section is and find that they are 
providing digital reference via Zoom, email, chat, etc.


